NEW FIGHTER: Cain the Punisher! Version 0.15.0 is Live!
Duels of Fortune · published · build 25530765
Cain the Punisher Breaks In!
Hello, Duelists! Duels of Fortune's newest update is OUT NOW, featuring our newest fighter: Cain the Punisher!!
Cain is a powerful, long-range character who aims to bait out committal actions from the opponent and punish them (heh) with his gigantic attacks! He may be slow, but between his deadly chain-axe, fire breath, and control over magma, his range and power are enough to snuff out any opponent he faces with terrifying efficiency.
Cain will be the final new character of 2026, as the rest of the year for us will be primarily focused on Story Mode development! We hope you enjoy Cain and look forward to the impending beginnings of Story Mode!
Included in this chunky update is:
- A new fighter, Cain the Punisher!
- A new stage, Paradise Road!
- A brand-new look for the Back Alley stage!
- 3 new costumes for existing characters!
- 3 new Missions!
- New tutorials!
- LOTS of balance adjustments and bug fixes!
We've also made a short video to show off everything in visual form! Check it out below!
And you can scroll down through this post to read the full patch notes for yourself! Characters who've received balance changes will have a short blurb summarizing what's changed and why. Enjoy!
NEW FIGHTER
- Cain the Punisher joins the fight! This savage, ancient warlord uses his vicious chain-axe and his dominion over fire and earth to brutalize his foes with deadly precision, stopping their every move before they can even make it.
Costumes
- Added a new costume: Warlord Cain (Unlocked by beating Arcade Mode as Cain)
- Added a new costume: Fisherman Cain (Unlocked by beating the Mission "Gone Fishing")
Game Audio
- All hit sounds have been modified to make them louder and punchier! There is also some slight pitch variance on each hit sound now. This also applies to knockdown and explosion sounds
- Music volume has been lowered across the board, as it previously could drown out the sound effects even when the two were set to the same volume level
Visual Effects
- Adjusted the way hit spark effects are placed so that they can no longer appear completely detached from a character’s model
Burst
- Increased the horizontal knockback of Break Burst
- Reduced the vertical knockback of Break Burst
- Break Burst knockback is now dynamically adjusted depending on where the opponent is relative to you, such that it always attempts to leave the opponent roughly the same distance away from you
- Hitting a Break Burst now removes the opponent’s ability to perform a forward air dash until they touch the ground
- Fixed an issue where Break Burst did not always correctly lock out the opponent’s forward air recovery
Throw Break
- Increased the distance both players are pushed back after a Throw Break occurs
- The player who broke the throw now recovers very slightly faster than the player who initiated the throw
Block
- Removed an antiquated mechanic in which breaking an opponent’s guard would dramatically increase the hitstun they received
CPU Fighters
- CPU opponents now decide to use Blast Burst depending on the hitstun scaling of the combo, rather than the number of hits dealt
- Fixed an oversight where the player could force a CPU opponent to taunt
Hard Knockdown
- When a move would have granted Hard Knockdown, but couldn’t due to the Hard Knockdown cooldown timer being active, it is now signified by a unique yellow knockdown spark
- Fixed an oversight where the Hard Knockdown cooldown timer did not reset after a Training Mode reset
Knockdown
- Implemented measures to try and prevent an issue where hitting a character on the same frame they entered knockdown could result in incorrect knockback
Dash
- Implemented measures to try and prevent an issue where characters would not receive knockback if they were hit while landing from an air dash
Landing Lag
- Fixed an issue where hitting an opponent during their landing lag caused their hitstun to be delayed
UI
- Fixed an issue where having a round end in a draw (via timeout) caused the fade-to-black effect between rounds, as well as the “Ready?”, “Fight!”, and “KO” pop-ups, to no longer appear
Miscellaneous
- Implemented measures to prevent characters from being treated as “in the corner” when they are midscreen
- Fixed an issue where characters would wait a frame after hitstun ended to turn to the face the opponent
Character Select
- In Versus battles, the stage select screen now shows the icons of both fighters in the top-left corner, as well as the current win counts
- Fixed an issue where attempting to change a character’s alt colour or costume while their render was still loading could cause it to remain stuck loading until the selected costume or character was changed again
- Fixed a visual issue where both players could appear to have selected the same alt colour for the same costume, if they were both hovering the choice before confirming. The player who confirms their choice last is now forced onto a different alt colour
Lore Journal
- Added new lore entries:
- Cain the Punisher (Unlocked by beating Arcade Mode as Cain)
- Aimee Field (Unlocked by playing 5 matches on Paradise Road)
- Paulita Sunday (Unlocked by playing 5 matches on Paradise Road)
- Big Barry (Unlocked by playing 10 matches on Paradise Road)
- Tor Tellini (Unlocked by playing 10 matches on Paradise Road)
- Ava Myini (Unlocked by playing 10 matches on Paradise Road)
Settings
- When adjusting audio levels, you no longer have to press a button to select an audio channel before adjusting it
Training Mode
- Fixed several issues with the “Allow KO” setting in Training Mode, most of which caused the dummy to be able to recover from hitstun after being KO’d
- Fixed various issues with the Block Type dummy setting
- Fixed an issue where the dummy’s Block Type would not update when their state was set to Jump
- Fixed an issue where the dummy’s Block Type would not update if the On Recovery setting had been previously altered
- Fixed an issue where the dummy’s Control Type could be overwritten by its Block Type (i.e. a dummy set to Crouch would instead stand up if their Block Type was set to High).
Combo Trials
- Sylvan - Fixed an oversight which caused the forward input version of “Security!!” (Neutral Special) to not trigger a successful combo step
Tutorial
- Added a new tutorial to the Basic section:
- Anti-Air Attacks
Mission Mode
- Added 3 new Missions:
- Gone Fishing (Page 2)
- Digital Dogfight (Page 2)
- The Shadow's Fright (Page 4)
NEW STAGE: Paradise Road
- Outside the massive Silver Stadium, everyone has congregated as the Duels of Fortune tournament is just about to start! Lots of faces both new and familiar make up the crowd here. Can you spot them all?
- With stage hazards enabled, the playable area expands for a much larger stage than usual!
Back Alley
- The Back Alley stage has received a complete remake to help it fit in better with the more recent city stages!
- Due it being somewhat iconic, the original Back Alley has been left in as a stage variant, now called Back Alley (Legacy)
Silver Stadium Lobby
- The new NPCs Tor Tellini and Ava Myini can now appear on this stage if their lore entries are unlocked
- Big Barry's lore entry must now be unlocked for him to appear on this stage
Dasteel Workshop
- Fixed a memory leak that could cause extreme slowdowns and crashes when playing on the stage for too long
- Please let us know if you still experience this issue, especially if you play on a lower-end PC
Sylvan’s Office
- Fixed an issue where the stage’s floor model was placed higher than the actual floor collision
Necromancer's Keep
- Made a potential fix to an issue where characters could sometimes slide after being hit by specific moves on this stage
Stage Hazards
- Fixed an issue where landing on a platform while attacking sometimes caused your character to remain in the airborne state
One of Annie’s least-used moves was her Neutral Super, in part because of how strong her Down Super is, and in part because the move wasn’t meeting expectations even in a vacuum. We’ve decided to rework this Super into the ultimate “get off me” tool, becoming more effective when Annie is cornered and dragging opponents away from her. It should also now be able to deal more consistent damage in general.
Grab
- The throw hitbox no longer destroys Volatile Condensed Energy orbs
- Improved Gizmo’s slam animation
- Added new visual effects
HSC Function 174-A (Neutral Super)
- Gizmo now always spawns at the edge of the screen behind Annie, instead of spawning relative to her position. This effectively gives the move quicker startup if Annie has her back to the corner, and longer startup if she is facing it
- The move now ends after Gizmo travels a set distance, instead of when he goes off-screen
- Altered the knockback of the energy bombs so that they now combo into each other
- Reduced the damage of each individual energy bomb from 1500 to 1000
- Slightly increased the size of each energy bomb
- Increased recovery time
Rattlebone’s Spinal Axe has received a glow-up! It now travels along its arc much faster and can even be thrown at multiple angles on the ground, making it a more versatile tool for neutral and keepaway.
Spinal Axe (Down Special)
- The grounded version of the move now has multiple throwing angles
- Hold FORWARD to throw the axe further
- Hold BACK to throw axe higher and less far
- Otherwise, it retains roughly the same throwing angle as before
Shoto's Hair Style - Upper Cut move always felt a bit out of place in his moveset, so we've given it some new functionality! It can now be jump-cancelled on hit to lead to air combos, and even hits multiple times to let it blast through most armoured attacks!
Hair Style - Upper-Cut (Dashing Down-Forward Heavy)
- The move now deals 3 separate hits, instead of a single hit
- The final hit of the move is now jump-cancellable
- Shoto now travels slightly further with the move
- Updated the move’s visual effects
Electric Ball (Neutral Special)
- The projectile now disappears if Shoto is hit while it is active. This change also applies to Electric Blast (Hold Neutral Special)
Storm Kicks (Back Special)
- Made a potential fix for an issue where resetting in Training Mode during this move could break the next use of the move, causing Shoto to immediately enter landing recovery
Trash to Treasure (Down Super)
- Fixed an issue where the healing particle from the enhanced Energy Drink was incorrect
Red was often able to gain enough Rage from Breaker Barrage to always use the Rage follow-up afterward, even if he had no Rage before using it. He can no longer do that!
Breaker Barrage (Neutral Super)
- Red now earns less Rage when using this Super
Azutron has always been a fundamentally strong character, and we don’t think we can do much to change that without neutering him completely. Our goal with these changes is simply to address the character’s most obnoxious aspects, limiting his ability to perform ambiguous mix-ups off a Hard Knockdown, and reigning in the potential length of Holo-Jail combos. His general damage values have also received slight adjustments.
Holo-Jail
- Breaking the Holo-Jail no longer pushes back hitstun decay. However, the jail explosion hit no longer adds to hitstun decay itself
Crouching Medium
- Slightly reduced damage from 1200 to 1100
Jumping Medium
- Slightly reduced damage from 1200 to 1100
Jumping Heavy
- Removed the Hard Knockdown property from this move
Justice Boot (Air Down Heavy)
- Increased damage from 1200 to 1400
Law Lariat
- Increased damage from 1000 to 1300
Relocate (Neutral Special)
- Reduced damage from 1000 to 600
- Made a potential fix for an issue where teleporting to a grounded position sometimes placed Azutron in the air
Long Arm of the Law (Down Special)
- Removed the floor bounce from this move
Omega Beam (Neutral Super)
- Slightly reduced the damage of the final hit (total damage: 5100 -> 5000)
- Adjusted the check for angling the move to occur earlier, preventing the beam from “snapping” into place after it had already started up
Grab
- Increased the time it takes for Locks to throw the opponent after grabbing them, preventing the throw break window from potentially being smaller than other characters
Training Mode
- Locks can now utilize the character-specific Training Mode setting to choose whether or not to have the buffed Buzz Cut after a reset
Baron's held Crouching Heavy proved to be a bit too difficult to deal with in certain matchups due to it being active for a while and recovering very quickly. Both of these aspects of the move have been adjusted here.
Crouching Heavy
- Increased the recovery time of the held version
- Slightly reduced the time the hitbox is active
Star Breaker Slam (Neutral Super)
- Baron now suffers free-fall landing recovery after whiffing the move
Muscle Form: Red Supergiant (Down Super)
- Fixed an issue where Baron would be unaffected by the damage multiplier setting in Versus matches after using this Super
Miscellaneous
- Fixed an issue where Sylvan’s “Cheat” effect would persist between rounds
Barrel O’ Pain (Neutral Special)
- Made the smoke effect when the barrel disappears much more visible
Give No Quarter! (Down Special)
- Fixed an issue where the move could attempt to loop its animation, which could sometimes cause a second crewmate to be summoned
- Fixed an issue where performing any attack with Shiverskull in between the first and second hits of either Marrow or Mandible’s assist attack caused the second hit to scale as if it was a separate move
Miscellaneous
- Fixed an issue where Shiverskull’s crew indicator would reset its animation state after disabling and re-enabling the UI (via either debug commands or Training Mode settings)
Lance's special bullet types are now quicker to load, making them take up less of your zoning time. His grenades also now deal reduced blockstun, as Lance could abuse them to keep the opponent blocking for a long time.
Load Bullet (All types)
- Sped up the move’s animation
HE Grenade (Back Special)
- Reduced the blockstun dealt by the grenade explosion
- Fixed an issue where holding Special while pulling a grenade could sometimes result in part of Lance’s animation being skipped
Training Mode
- Lance can now utilize the character-specific Training Mode setting to choose which ammo type to have loaded after a reset
Costumes
- Added a new costume: Parasite Black Heart (Unlocked by default)
Trick Punch (Back Special)
- Added additional sound effects
- Implemented measures to prevent Black Heart from skipping the backflip portion of the move
Negative Fire (Air Neutral Special)
- Fixed an issue where Black Heart would take no knockback if he was hit on the same frame a fireball spawned
Miscellaneous
- Fixed an issue where Black Heart could not perform a light attack out of a backwards long jump
Gritallica was an unexpectedly popular choice in the recent tournament, as it was discovered he was capable of pressure sequences that were very difficult for the opponent to deal with. We’ve hit the problem moves with some nerfs, but also sped up his soul eating to encourage more freeform use of his soul abilities.
Costumes
- Added a new costume: Devil Gritallica (Unlocked by default)
Crouching Light
- Slightly reduced recovery time
Crouching Medium
- Significantly increased recovery time
Crouching Heavy
- The move is no longer cancellable on block
Down With the Dudeness (Back Heavy)
- Increased recovery time
Demon Eating (Neutral Special)
- Reduced the total animation length, making eating souls much quicker
Training Mode
- Guy can now utilize the character-specific Training Mode setting to change how many coffee beans he has after a reset
Costumes
- Added a new costume: Security Miko & Mira (Unlocked by beating the Mission "The Shadow's Fright")
Doodle's Fourth Wall is a useful tool that was oftentimes just a bit too committal to set up, so we've reduced the startup time to help with this. His counter now also ignores Armour to ensure you will always be rewarded for landing it successfully.
Ya like Parries? (Down Special)
- The counter-attack from this move now ignores Armour
The Fourth Wall (Back Special)
- Reduced startup time
Miscellaneous
- Fixed an issue where Doodle would not complete his full bonus idle animation
We've tweaked ERROR's flight in the hopes of giving it some more use cases, particularly by making it so ERROR will no longer automatically land when flying close to the ground. Combined with allowing Jumping Light to be used during flight for a new in-flight Overhead option, we hope this will make flight feel like more of a focal point in ERROR's toolkit.
Boolean (Back Special)
- Boolean Variable (held Back Special) now has a limit on its maximum velocity, making it easier to reposition with Invalid Action (Neutral Special)
Delete Gravity (Air Neutral Special)
- ERROR can no longer land on the ground while in flight, allowing for flight attacks to be easily performed close to the ground. Note that it is still possible to land when using Data Miner (Air Down Heavy) while flying
- ERROR can now perform Jumping Light during flight by pressing Forward + Light, much like with Jumping Medium and Heavy
void Consume(); (Neutral Super)
- Fixed an issue where the opponent could not enter a portal if the last move they were hit by was the initial scream attack of void Consume();
Costumes
- Float ERROR - This costume is now unlocked by beating the new Mission “Digital Dogfight”
While extremely high damage is a crucial part of Johnson’s identity as a character, we found that his access to his most explosive combos was far too free compared to the rest of the cast, especially for a character who is meant to be resource-dependent. We haven’t taken away Johnson’s damage completely, but we’ve made it so that he has to give up more resources to reach the same heights. This is in addition to adjusting some specific moves to make them more intuitive and/or fit them better to their intended roles.
Trigger Cancels
- The first time Johnson uses a Trigger Cancel in a combo, it now simply acts as a cancel without any additional benefits. Gaining further benefits now requires using two Trigger Cancels in one combo. The second Trigger Cancel grants the following effects:
- 1.2x damage multiplier for the remainder of the combo
- Damage scaling reduced by 30%
- Hitstun decay reset by 3 steps
- The opponent’s Break Burst is locked out for the remainder of the combo
Grab
- Adjusted the animation to reduce clipping
Coonskin Cap (Back Special)
- Fixed an issue where the landing recovery of this move could not be Trigger Cancelled
- Fixed an issue where performing this move too close to the ground could cause Johnson to bounce after landing
Spiral Turban Special (Down Special)
- Johnson now gains more velocity from the move, but slows down sooner
- Slightly reduced recovery time of the initial attack
- Reduced the time the hitbox is active to better align with the animation
- The initial attack can no longer switch sides with a blocking opponent if used up close
- Reduced the damage of the Sombrero Roundabout (Chain) follow-up from 800 to 400
Aerial Spiral Turban (Air Neutral Special)
- Fixed an issue where the move would fail to give Johnson any velocity if used during a long jump
BLOODY MOONFISH!! (Down Super)
- The move now has a few frames of startup before the cinematic, during which Johnson is vulnerable
- Johnson now fails to throw Shaz if he is hit within a few frames of the cinematic ending
- Johnson is now projectile invincible during the Super’s startup, and for a few frames after throwing Shaz
True Hat of Doom (QCF + Special (Near Fallen Hat))
- The move now always wall bounces, even on a late hit
- Increased horizontal knockback to ensure a wall bounce will always occur
- Reduced the time the hitbox is active
- Reduced recovery time
Training Mode
- Johnson can now utilize the character-specific Training Mode setting to change how many Bullets he has after a reset
CPU Fighters
- CPU opponents now attempt to use Trigger Cancels at more appropriate times
We've given Ember more incentive to use her copy abilities by increasing the damage she deals with them! Her Ayall Anvil attack has also gotten some quality-of-life buffs.
Ayall Anvil (Air Down Heavy)
- Greatly increased Ember’s falling speed with this move
- Adjusted the knockback of the landing hit to make it easier to combo from
Copy Attack (Hold Neutral Special)
- Ember now receives a 1.2x damage bonus on all copied attacks
Costumes
- Western Ember - Fixed an issue where this costume’s alternate colours failed to load the textures for the pins on Ember’s hat
While Globule receiving very little Linseed from getting hit was an intended weakness, we believe that we may have stifled her a bit too much in this regard, so we've adjusted the numbers to be a bit more reasonable. We've also fixed a bug that was causing her to earn less Linseed than intended when getting hit by big-damage attacks.
Linseed
- Globule now gains Linseed slightly more often when blocking or being hit
- Fixed an issue where Globule was gaining less Linseed than intended from high damage individual hits, such as Supers
Crouching Heavy
- Slightly reduced recovery time
Over the Ledge (Air Down Heavy)
- Fixed an issue where the divekick would fail to give Chizuru any velocity if used during a long jump
Masked Oni (Arcade Mode secret boss)
- The Masked Oni’s reduced hitstun in mask-off mode now only applies from the fourth move onward in a combo, making it easier to start combos against the Oni, and making Bursts and Reversals more effective against him
- When the Masked Oni’s hitstun reduction is active, it is now signified by a red aura around the player’s hitstun meter
- The Masked Oni’s aerial fireballs now travel faster and have shorter lifetimes, making them linger on screen for less time
- The Masked Oni’s uppercut Super should no longer switch sides with a blocking player
- Adjusted the velocity of the Masked Oni’s uppercut Super to eliminate some janky movement at the end
- Fixed an issue where the Masked Oni’s air recovery animation could play repeatedly after a KO if he was a Training Mode dummy
Donner (Special guest Arcade Mode boss)
- Donner can now utilize the character-specific Training Mode setting to change how many Bullets he has after a reset